Need to let it ride

Life has been running out of control lately (pun intended 🙂 I tend to think of myself as somebody that likes to stay busy and can multi-task, but of late I’m inclined to believe I’ve reached my limit. That uneasy “I’m overwhelmed” feeling seems to come over me on a more frequent basis. I do enjoy the rush but fear I’ll drop one of the many balls I’m juggling and it’ll come down crashing, and worse that it’s one that I really can’t afford to drop.

On the bright side I do feel good about where things are right now with everything. On the work side, I’ve been back at NI for just under two years. Really enjoying it, working on cloud stuff, learning about RF communications, and just some very cool technically challenging things (many geeky acronyms are being left out here). On the friends and family front, able to spend time with the people who are important to me … would like to spend some more. On the non-profit front Green Doors is doing well and TeamRogue.org seems to be finding its footing with a good board and set of athletes in place. Another project is an attempt to start a new business which is scary, exciting, liberating and stressful all at the same time. On this last one the next three to four months will be key, after that who knows, it’s really too early to tell. Oh, and running, having a regular partner whose company I thoroughly enjoy to run with everyday has been heaven-sent. I don’t do well running on my own and couldn’t imagine being able to run as much as I’d like to and stay sane without that. The team starts up this week so it’ll be nice to have the whole crew together at least three days a week for the rest of the year.

Lately I’ve been contemplating backing off on something … maybe stop training so hard and just run for fitness. But I really enjoy everything I’m doing. The combination can be overwhelming but … well I was with a former work colleague who went back to school for his M.B.A. and somebody asked him “What is the best lesson you learned at school?”. His response was that he got a chance to talk to a lot of very successful people at lectures/conferences and he made it a point to talk to them and gleam what made them successful and satisfied with their lives. The conclusion he reached came down to a perspective on work life balance. He said that for those people work life balance was that the two are intertwined and those people tended to give a lot to all the things in their lives. Did they have regrets about some of their decisions … of course but in all they made use of all their time for all the things they wanted to do and achieve. Focused on work at work, got home, spent time with kids, focused on their family for the time they had with them and didn’t half-ass it by staying on their laptops etc. That helped me out a little with my current state of mind. For the time being, I’m going to keep going with all cylinders firing. I hope I don’t overheat but I won’t know unless I try.